


Through the Looking Glass

by QuokkaMocha



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Gen, Gothic, Multi-Doctor, Multi-Era, Not What It Looks Like, Novella, One Shot, Virtual Reality, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29185476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuokkaMocha/pseuds/QuokkaMocha
Summary: The Doctor and Clara are stuck in a simulation, but whose dream is it, and which version of the Doctor is real?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Through the Looking Glass

Doctor Who – Through the Looking Glass

1.

Things came back to the Doctor in small chunks. Who he was, what he was, that came slowly, then the feeling of being very cold and very wet. When he tried to move, his clothes felt leaden. He was soaked through. The fact that it was dark and it was raining came next. He was outdoors, he knew that from the cold and the howling wind, and the feeling of grass and mud beneath his feet. The air smelled and tasted… that was odd, it didn’t taste or smell of anything. It didn’t even have the damp scent of rain. An artificial structure perhaps? But that would have its own odour. The Doctor peered into the darkness, but there were no stars, no moons, nothing to say where he might be.

He listened to the hiss of the rain and heard a growl of distant thunder. That was hopeful. He waited. Yes, sure enough, a flash of lightning lit up the overcast sky and let him glimpse the world around him for the first time. He saw only bleak, undulating hills, no trees, but there was a road only a foot or so away. Then the light died and he was in the dark again.

The TARDIS. Its image swam into his mind like the blood coming back into a trapped limb. He patted down his sodden jacket and found his sonic screwdriver in his inside pocket. It gave off a faint green glow, though its whirr was drowned out by the wind and thunder. He went to the road and followed it a short way, looking for any features that might indicate which planet, or spaceship or station or parallel universe or whatever this was might be. Another flash of lightning cut veins of searing white light through the clouds, and ahead he saw a girl, just a momentary shadow in the middle of the road, hugging herself for warmth. He felt he knew her but her name escaped him. Still, she was the first living creature, assuming she was living, that he’d seen in this place.

As he headed for the spot where he had seen her, picking his way carefully in the dark, another sound crept through the hiss of the rain. Hooves and wheels, he thought, some kind of animal-drawn vehicle. A moment later he saw two faint lights heading towards him, and towards the girl. A shape appeared, a patch of darkness thicker than the rest. As the carriage’s lanterns threw a little light on the road, he saw the girl, still there wandering as if dazed, and directly in the path of the vehicle. The Doctor flung himself at her, grabbed her round the waist and pulled her clear. The two of them fell onto the muddy grass by the roadside as the carriage rattled past. The Doctor caught a brief glimpse of sleek black horses and a large black coach before it disappeared into the darkness again. The rain soon drowned out the last sounds of it.

The Doctor felt around for his screwdriver then staggered back to his feet. The faint green light was enough to pick out the girl’s silhouette but not her face, though the ghost of a name had come to him in the instant the carriage passed.

‘Clara,’ he said. She turned to face him but he still couldn’t make her out clearly.

‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘Where’s the TARDIS?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How did we get here?’

‘I don’t know. What’s the last thing you remember?’

She shook her head and threw splashes of water into his face. She was soaked through too.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘There was… It was London. There was this dinosaur and, I think Madame Vastra was there and you…’ She pointed at him as if she’d had a eureka moment. ‘You were there but you’d changed. You used to be… younger, but then you changed.’

‘I remember,’ the Doctor said. A few flashes of his recent past had started to come back, nothing solid enough to grab onto, though. Nothing to tell him where he was or how they’d come to be here.

‘That carriage was headed somewhere,’ he said. ‘Seems as good a place to start as any.’

‘It might be miles.’

‘Do you have a better idea?’

He assumed from her silence that she did not.

They trudged on, following the road, though the Doctor found his suit so heavy it was like wading through treacle. Casual conversation was impossible. He had to yell just to be heard over the rain and thunder and it was hard to form words with the storm battering his face. He concentrated instead on moving. Beside him, Clara shivered. She was a tiny human and wouldn’t last long in this cold. There had to be some shelter nearby. He clung onto that hope.

Another flash of lightening illuminated the clouds ahead and there it was. The Doctor smiled to himself. The dark silhouette of a building, a castle perhaps, rising from the featureless heath. There was no sign of the carriage but the Doctor was sure it had headed that way. A few minutes later they were on a gravel driveway. Two large lanterns burned on either side of the castle’s arched entranceway and showed a flight of steps leading up to hefty wooden doors with iron fittings. The Doctor and Clara hurried up the steps into the relative shelter beneath the arch.

‘Course,’ said Clara. ‘Dark and stormy night. Creepy old castle.’

‘Creepy, dry castle, hopefully,’ the Doctor replied. He tugged on a long chain hanging by the door and a doleful bell echoed somewhere in the depths of the building.

‘I swear if that opens on its own with a creak…’ Clara muttered. ‘So is this Earth then? What, medieval?’

‘It’s not Earth,’ the Doctor said.

‘Where then?’

‘I told you. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. I can’t get a sense of the gravity, I can’t make out the composition of the atmosphere, I can’t even feel the movement of time. It’s as if this place doesn’t really exist.’

From the other side of the door came the clanking of many locks and bolts being undone. The large door swung inwards on, as Clara had predicted, groaning hinges, and revealed a large, stone flagged hallway lit by a few cobwebbed candelabras, wax dribbling down the ornate brass stands. A figure stood before them, short and stout and dressed entirely in black, a suit from perhaps the Victorian era on Earth, complete with a dusty top hat and black crepe mourning band tied around it. His face, the Doctor could see, was round and clean shaven but he wore a half mask of some kind of grey ceramic, making it impossible to see much more than this and a pair of small, inquisitive eyes. He said nothing, but simply stared at them both, long enough for the Doctor’s temper to start rising.

‘Hello,’ Clara said before he had the chance to say anything inflammatory. ‘Hi. I’m Clara, this is the Doctor. Can we come in? We’re travellers. We’re a bit lost.’

The little man gave her a very deliberate head to toe look, then stepped back and held out his arm, inviting them in.

A huge staircase made of blood-red mahogany swept up towards a stone gallery right in front of them, candles dripping all the way up and glimmering all around the parapet. Faint music, slow and sombre, drifted down from the upper storey. The little man walked like an undertaker’s mute towards the stairs, paused to make sure they were following, then gestured to them to go up.Clara looked to the Doctor and he shrugged. What else were they going to do?

After a few steps, the Doctor became aware of a presence above him and looked up to see two more figures, one male, one female, dressed in the same undertaker’s garb as the first, and wearing the same cracked porcelain masks that gave their faces an unnerving doll-like appearance. Both were taller than the little doorman, and thinner. The man in particular had an almost skeletally slim frame beneath his black suit, and iron-grey hair showing just beneath his hat. The girl was much younger but it was hard to tell her age exactly in that costume. Her skin was dark, her hair drawn back and hidden beneath the hat, but what he could see of it was black. None of the three showed any emotion, however, and moved with the same stiff grace.

‘Guests?’ asked the taller man. You could almost hear the raise of an eyebrow in his tone.

‘Hi,’ Clara said, waving.

‘You’ve chosen a very inauspicious night to come here,’ the man continued, ignoring her. He had no discernible accent when he spoke, or none that the Doctor could make out.

‘We haven’t chosen anything at all,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Neither of us have any recollection of how we came to be here.’

‘Interesting,’ said the tall man. ‘But please, you’ve been in the rain. You’ll need a change of clothes and perhaps some food.’

‘Thank you.’

‘This way.’ The tall man headed upstairs, leaving his two companions behind.

As they climbed, the music grew louder. Something slow and operatic. Handel, the Doctor thought. Dido and Aeneas, _When I Am Laid in Earth_.Just the thing to make a miserable setting even bleaker. When they reached the gallery, their host led them past a series of gothic arched doorways, all closed, until they came to a stretch of carpeted hall, where two doors stood open. The Doctor looked into the first and saw a wood-panelled bedroom, four poster and all, fire roaring in the hearth beneath a wide mantelpiece carved with gargoyles and grinning, fantastical beasts. Draped across the crimson brocade bedspread was a pale blue dress. The undertaker paused there and Clara, taking the hint, headed inside. She looked around and paused to inspect herself briefly in the full-length mirror in the far corner, but its surface was grimy and missing huge patches of silver. Then she turned back to face him.

‘You think it’s all right?’

‘I think if whatever’s running this wanted us dead it would’ve tried something by now.’

Clara picked up the dress and held it out in front of her but kept looking straight at the Doctor. ‘Or they’re playing with us.’

‘Always a possibility. Either way, you are going to catch pneumonia if you don’t change. I expect I’ll only be next door.’

The Undertaker – the Doctor had started to think of him as the Chief Undertaker -nodded, a faint smile crossing his thin lips, then they moved on to the next doorway. The Doctor’s room was identical bar a different pattern here and there on the brocade or the curtains, and he had his own change of clothes laid out for him.

‘I’m going to assume, since you have this ready and waiting,’ he said, ‘that you’ve got the size correct. I’ve been putting on weight since this regeneration.’

‘You were scanned upon entry,’ said the Chief Undertaker. ‘A security precaution, but it allowed us to assess your needs. Please.’ He gestured to the room and bowed.

‘So you have technology somewhere,’ the Doctor muttered to himself as he went inside. The warmth from the fire filled the place with dry, stuffy air and made the cobwebs around the architrave flutter as if in a breeze. He peeled off his own suit, transferred his screwdriver, psychic paper and anything else he thought might be useful or dangerous if it fell into enemy hands from his coat to the jacket he’d been given, then scowling slightly at the castle’s choice of wardrobe, began to dress.

He returned to the corridor just in time to see Clara coming out of the room next door. The dress they’d given her was late Victorian in style, powder blue jacquard cut at the front to show a white underskirt. She pulled her door closed then turned and noticed him for the first time. She smirked. He could see the effort she was putting into stifling a laugh and he didn’t appreciate it.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ The Doctor asked, defensively. Despite this not being his first choice of outfit, he had thought he looked rather good.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ Clara replied. ‘It’s just… Never seen you in a kilt before, that’s all.’

‘The scanner must have picked up on the accent and made assumptions, that’s all.’

‘Yeah,’ said Clara, still trying not to laugh by the looks of her. She folded her arms and gave him a critical look. ‘Just, for some reason, I’ve got this real craving for chicken legs now…’

‘Very funny.’ The Doctor turned and headed away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, hurrying to catch up. ‘I’m sorry. I’m only kidding. The old you would’ve laughed.’

‘No he wouldn’t,’ replied the Doctor. ‘The old me would’ve given you a look like a puppy that’s just been told Christmas is cancelled and the tooth fairy isn’t real and then would’ve gone off in a sulk.’

‘Well, at least the last bit’s stayed consistent.’

The Doctor sighed, not really sure why he was annoyed, but unable to suppress the feeling either. ‘Look, I’m not him any more. I thought we’d gone over this. I never will be. Never again. That part of me that was… _him_ is gone. Dead. It doesn’t matter what _he_ would do or what _he_ would be like because he’s not here and he’s not me.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ she insisted. ‘I just…’ She looked away.

‘You just what?’

She bit her lip, obviously debating whether to answer, then sighed. ‘I just miss him sometimes. You used to be fun. You used to care about people. You used to have a laugh, you used to…’

‘Be someone you fancied?’ She didn’t reply. ‘Well I’m not, Clara. Not any more. I can’t help it if you don’t like that.’

He walked off before she could argue back and this time resolved not to stop even if she did call after him. There was no sign of the three undertakers but the music still wafted out of a doorway on the opposite side of the gallery.. He followed the doleful little chamber orchestra and lone singer’s voice to the and found the door was closed but not locked, a crack of light showing around the edges. He pushed his way through and stepped inside.

At once the music stopped, a single piano note lingering on the air for a while before silence descended. There was no orchestra, no singer, only a bier in the very centre of the cold, stone chamber, on which sat a large, black coffin with silver fittings, about seven feet long and three wide. Wreaths of white and red roses lay around it, heaped up against the sides of the bier. Although the coffin lid as propped open, from the doorway it was impossible to see who or what was lying in state.

‘ _We have put her living in the tomb,_ ’ Clara whispered.

‘How do you know it’s a she? How do you know it’s anything at all?’

‘I was quoting,’ she replied. ‘Fall of the House of Usher. Edgar Allen Poe. Because this is straight out of a Roger Corman film.’

The Doctor approached the coffin, and for the first time noticed a piece of black card propped against the foot of the bier amongst the roses, inscribed in a spidery hand in silver ink.

‘Do not awake him; for he is DEATH,’ the Doctor read aloud, ‘and his touch is DEATH and his sleep is…’

‘Let me guess,’ said Clara. ‘Death by any chance? That is a big coffin though.’

‘Perhaps he wanted to be comfortable.’

‘If Bela Lugosi appears out of that thing, you know I’ll be running, right?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.’

The Doctor came to the side of the bier and looked down into the coffin. It had a white satin lining that did actually look very comfortable, but it was already occupied. A body lay beneath a black muslin shroud. Through the thin fabric, he could just make out a humanoid shape, aquiline nose, slender body. A musty smell of long-dead flowers lingered over the casket and the corpse. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and used the scan setting. It was odd, but the screwdriver didn’t feel right. It was too bulky, and he didn’t remember it being so cubist in design. It had always been cylindrical, hadn’t it? And wasn’t the light green outside in the rain, not blue as it was here? But he dismissed this as his brain still struggling through the amnesia and studied the readings.

‘So what is it?’ Clara asked.

‘Nothing. According to this there’s nothing there. No coffin, nothing.’

Clara ran her hand along the rim of the casket. ‘It feels solid.’

‘So does a dream, when you’re in it.’

‘Do you think this could be a dream? I mean, I was doing Poe with the year sevens a couple of weeks back. Maybe it was still in my subconscious. You don’t think it’s the…’ She held her hand up to her face, fingers splayed. ‘The dream crab things again, do you?’

‘No, that felt more solid than this,’ the Doctor said, remembering with a shudder how for days he’d questioned everything around him until he was sure he was back in the real world again. ‘That was drawn from our minds, from our memories, with all the sensory information our brains store there to make it feel real. This… this is shoddy workmanship. Computer simulation maybe. But if so, where are we and why are we in here?’

‘And how do we get out?’

‘Quite. Or more to the point, how do you get out?’

‘Me?’

‘You said yourself, this is probably drawing inspiration from your mind. Besides, if it were me plugged into some artificial reality, especially one as badly put together as this, I’d realise right away and I’d get myself out.’

He turned his attention back to the prone figure in the coffin, trying to untangle a nagging thought at the back of his mind. Something about dream crabs. That wasn’t right somehow, but he couldn’t work out why. He reached down into the casket and found the edge of the muslin. With a gentle tug he pulled it clear of the figure’s head and tried to draw it back from the face.

The figure sat bolt upright and reached out to him with taloned hands, its skin grey and smeared with something black like soot. The Doctor stumbled backwards and the creature fell with him, some of the muslin still wrapped around its face, obscuring its features. He felt the long, sharp nails tearing at him, leaving burning trails where they touched exposed skin. He fought to push the creature off but despite its emaciated form, its strength was immense. One filthy hand curled around his throat and squeezed.

Something black covered the creature and suddenly it was gone. The Doctor coughed and managed to prop himself up on his elbows.The three undertakers had the thing wrapped up in a heavy curtain and were dragging it back to its coffin, but it thrashed and soon there was a tearing sound and a long fingernail, the colour of long-buried bone, poked through. They wrestled the creature into the casket and the Chief Undertaker slammed down the lid. With brisk, co-ordinated movements, the three clicked the silver clasps all around the casket and locked it shut. The Chief turned and looked down at the Doctor, clasping his hands in front of him.

‘You should not have done that,’ he said.

‘What is that thing?’ Clara asked. ‘Why are you keeping it in here?’

‘The Sleeper must never be awoken,’ said the Chief Undertaker. ‘If he is ever allowed to run free, it will mean the end of all of us.’

‘And what exactly are all of you?’ asked the Doctor. ‘What is this place? What’s it for?’

‘It is meant to contain the Sleeper,’ the Undertaker replied. ‘His rest is vital to the peace of the universe. If he is set free, he could destroy all life in the cosmos.’

‘How?’

The Chief Undertaker cocked his head to one side as if considering this. ‘He brings death in many ways. His touch is poison if it breaks the skin. His kiss is death. His…’

‘His breath is death, his armpits are… we get the picture, but the fact is, none of this is real, is it?’ The Doctor struggled to his feet. Everything ached and he had a throbbing pain just above his right knee. ‘This is some kind of simulation, but what is it for? What is your purpose?’

For a long while, the Chief Undertaker didn’t reply. Even with the mask obscuring his features he looked confused.

‘We are here to ensure that the Sleeper never awakens,’ he said at last.

‘But who or what is the Sleeper? What is his species? What is his name?’

Again, a long pause. ‘I do not have that information.’

‘So you’re all guarding something and you don’t even know what it is?’

The Doctor headed for the door but only got a few steps before the room started to twirl around. He heard Clara call out him, then he hit the flagstones with a painful thud. He blinked up at the vaulted ceiling, trying to fight off the dizziness and nausea.

‘Doctor?’ he heard Clara say, and then felt her arm around his shoulders as she helped him to sit up. ‘What’s the matter? Doctor, what’s wrong?’

A spasm of pain twisted his insides and he threw his head back to cry out, feeling Clara tighten her grip in reflex. When at last the attack subsided, the sharp pain in his leg flared up again. He managed to lean forward just enough to tug the hem of his kilt away from his knee, and to see the deep, claret coloured gash across his skin.

‘His touch is death,’ said the Chief Undertaker in an infuriatingly ‘I told you so’ way.

‘Well, what’s the cure?’ Clara demanded. ‘There has to be an antidote.’

‘There is no cure for the Sleeper’s evil.’

‘Rubbish! You can’t just stand there. You must know what to do. What if one of you gets scratched?’

‘We would not be so foolish as to rouse him,’ said the Chief Undertaker.

Clara growled in frustration, then lowered the Doctor down onto his back. He felt her take his hand. He could no longer focus on the ceiling. It was all a dark mass, growing darker as the pain and heat inside his skull intensified.

‘Right, OK,’ Clara said, panic making her words staccato. ‘It’s just poison, right? No big deal. You’ve had worse than this. You can regenerate, right?’

‘Into something more aesthetically acceptable?’ he asked through gritted teeth.

‘You know better than to say that.’

‘I know, I’m sorry. But no, I can’t. Regenerate that is. It’s too soon after the last one. My body isn’t stable enough yet.’

That was something he should’ve been able to feel, the cascade of cellular failure as his body tried and didn’t manage to renew itself, and yet there was only the fever and the pain. He gripped Clara’s wrist and pulled her closer.

‘Listen to me, Clara. You have to find the TARDIS. Use the telepathic circuits to go home, then just… just let her die. Find her somewhere quiet and let her fade away.’

‘No, I’m not just giving up, there has to be something…’

A loud knocking came from the far side of the room. The Doctor blinked and his eyes cleared enough for him to see a mirror standing there, full length like the ones in his and Clara’s rooms, also missing large patches of its silver coating. The dark stains these patches of damage left looked almost like a figure standing in the glass.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor managed. ‘I couldn’t be… what you wanted.’

‘Shut up. Just shut up. I’m going to find something. I’ll find the TARDIS. There has to be something in there.’

‘You have no time,’ said the Chief Undertaker, but Clara was on her feet.

‘You can shut up an’ all,’ she retorted. The knocking from the mirror came again, this time accompanied by a voice. The Doctor, through the haze, thought it said, ‘Clara.’ He saw her pause. She had heard it too, and she slowly turned to face the mirror, approaching it with measured, cautious steps. One of the undertakers, the girl, stood beside the mirror and gestured to it like a doorman welcoming a guest.

‘Clara,’ the voice said again. The Doctor watched as Clara reached out towards the mirror. A hand emerged through the glass and took hers. Then she was gone.

2.

Clara blinked at the room around her. After the shadows of the castle, the blazing golden lights were dazzling. The chamber was immense, walls lined with mirrors that threw back the light of a huge, spherical chandelier hanging in the centre like a dandelion clock. A group of musicians on a stage made to look like a crop of golden mushrooms played a waltz. Other mushrooms, or rather seats and couches made to look like mushrooms, grew up out of the checked marble floor. Clara backed away from the dusty mirror she had come through and turned to find the room full of people in lavish gowns and suits and carnival masks, all dancing to the undulating rhythm of the music. Then slowly she looked down, and saw that someone was holding her hand. The hand that had drawn her through the mirror. She followed the hand to its wrist, up the sleeve of a purple frock coat, and finally to a large, smiling face framed by floppy brown hair.

‘Hello Clara,’ said the Doctor, then he stepped back and adjusted his bow tie in the mirror.

‘How…’ Clara glanced back at the mirror and the Doctor saw her at his side in the reflection, though its surface was grimy and made her blurry and faceless.

‘About time,’ he said, still trying to sound casual even though the relief he felt was overwhelming. ‘Starting to worry you’d never snap out of it.’

‘How can you be here?’

‘Clara, I’ve been trying to get to you for a long time now, but this simulation, it’s huge. There are rooms and worlds everywhere. I’ve been to a hundred and forty seven different versions of this castle so far, four of them involving goats, which was not as much fun as it sounds. I’m just glad I managed to find you. Any longer in here and you’ll be completely integrated and even I won’t be able to pull you back out.’

‘It is a simulation then?’

‘A very old and very complex one,’ said the Doctor, wandering a few steps towards the dancefloor, surveying the crowd critically.

‘But…’ She chased after him as he moved off again, circling the edge of the room. ‘No, what I mean is, how can _you_ be here? I mean, you changed.’

He turned so suddenly to face her that she almost ran into him. ‘Changed? Changed how?’

‘Well, you know, your regeneration thing. You turned… Scottish and older and a bit cross.’

The Doctor sighed. ‘Clara, you’ve been in here for a long time. The scenario’s adapted to your own memories and twisted things to try and convince you this is real, to keep you here.’

‘But I remember things before I was here,’ Clara insisted. ‘I remember Daleks and Madame Vastra and the…’

‘Like I said, a lot of rooms, a lot of worlds, all within the same simulation.’

Clara stared at him.

‘I’m a Time Lord, Clara,’ the Doctor went on. ‘We only have thirteen chances to regenerate, thirteen lives, that’s it. Once this body’s too old and used up, that’s the end. I won’t change. I can’t become anyone else. It’ll be over.’

‘No, but the Time Lords, they…’

He laid his hand on her arm and smiled, as much as he felt able to. ‘I’m sorry, Clara. But you’ve been here a long, long time.’

‘Why would I… I mean, if I was going to dream someone up for you to change into why would it be him?’

‘I don’t know because I don’t know who you’re talking about, but listen to me, Clara, whatever you believe’s happened, you are out there on an automated base built just below the surface of an asteroid, plugged into its computer system and unless we find a way to break that link, neither of us can get back. I know it’s hard but you have to try and forget about him, forget all the lies this system has tried to get you to believe. It’s all designed to keep you here and keep you dreaming. That’s all it wants.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘New people!’ shrieked a voice behind them, cutting through the music. The company danced in circles around the golden mushrooms in the centre, but one figure had broken away from the rest and crossed over to them. He stood with his arms outstretched as if he were about to make an elaborate bow. He wore a green velvet coat patched with scraps of other, multi-coloured fabrics, and beneath it a flamingo-pink waistcoat and blue knee-breeches, with white stockings and orange, high-heeled shoes, a vaguely eighteenth century get up, though one put together by someone with no sense of colour co-ordination whatsoever. His hair was fluffy and white, streaked here and there with scarlet, though as the Doctor looked closer, he realised those were actually red feathers hanging from the brim of his purple top hat. Like the undertakers, a mask covered the upper part of his face, revealing only a wide, toothy grin and bright green eyes.

‘Have you come to join the dance?’ the figure asked and gestured exaggeratedly towards the rest of the masquerade.

‘No, thank you,’ the Doctor replied, and turned to Clara. ‘Were you doing Alice in Wonderland with the year sevens as well as Poe?’

‘No, but…’

‘Cup of tea?’ asked the masked man. The Doctor assumed he was meant to be dressed as the Mad Hatter. He produced a china cup and saucer from behind his back and offered it to them.

‘No, thank you,’ the Doctor repeated. ‘We need to get out of here. Where’s the exit? There must be one programmed in here somewhere.’

The Hatter sipped his tea. ‘Oh, I expect so. Could be this way, could be that way. Could be any way at all. But of course the real question is, where did I get the cup of tea? The answer…’

‘Who’s in control of all of this?’ the Doctor interrupted. ‘Who’s in charge? Tell them the Doctor’s here and he wants a word.’

The Hatter’s grin faded and he slowly replaced the cup on its saucer, before handing the tea over to one of the masked dancers as they reeled past behind him.

‘You mean the Sleeper?’ he asked.

‘That’s what the other one called it,’ said Clara.

‘Yes, I mean the Sleeper,’ said the Doctor. ‘Where is he?’

‘Not a good idea,’ the Hatter replied. ‘The Sleeper must never be wakened. It’s terribly bad. Frightfully bad.’

‘Where can I find him?’

The Hatter, whether knowingly or not, glanced towards a doorway on the far side of the ballroom.

‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor, then strode off, leaving Clara to hitch up her skirts and hurry to catch up. The Hatter scurried after them too and overtook just as they came to the door. He stood with his hands against the jamb, blocking the way.

‘You really don’t want to do that,’ he warned. ‘Why don’t you just join us, have a dance, have a cup of tea? Relax and let everything slip away?’

‘Not really my style, I’m afraid,’ said the Doctor. He shouldered the Hatter out of the way and headed into the next room.

After the brightness of the ballroom, it took a second to adjust to the gloom in here. The Doctor surveyed the place, trying to get a sense of it, but this place was as dead as the rest of the simulation, no smells or feeling of planetary rotation or even a sense of what time of day it was. The room was perhaps half the size of the ballroom he’d just left, but was decorated in the same baroque style, with gilded mouldings on the wall and long strips of mirror reflecting the weak, shuddering light from a few dripping candles on golden stands. The mirrors were dusty and scratched, so that as he and Clara made their way further into the room, the sensation was like walking into a funfair, his reflection distorted, Clara’s no more than a featureless shadow.

Halfway across the room, a line of trees rose up and formed an archway, through which the Doctor could make out a gloomy forest, lit only by bioluminescent fungus on the trunks and amongst the undergrowth, glowing green, blue and pink. It was enough, though, that he could see a large coffin on a bier in a clearing just before the forest met the back wall of the room. More scuffed and stained mirrors threw back his reflection at him, ghostlike in the odd lighting.

‘Déjà vu,’ he said to himself, and started forward towards the forest.

The Hatter dashed into his path once again.

‘I really wouldn’t do that,’ he said.

‘Why?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Because if we can wake whoever’s having a little sleep in there, this whole thing will be over?’

‘You don’t understand,’ said the Hatter. ‘He’s dangerous.’

‘You’ve got one of my friends in here and you’re keeping her prisoner. That makes me pretty dangerous too.’

He pushed the Hatter out of the way and stepped forward. As soon as he reached the first trees, there was a roar, and searing heat washed over him. The Doctor stumbled back and only then realised that flames had risen from between the marble tiles, where they had cracked to allow the trees to grow through. As soon as he retreated, the fire died away again, leaving only a few wisps of smoke and a faint smell of burning on the air to say that it had ever been there.

‘I did warn you,’ said the Hatter.

The Doctor, feeling himself growing more annoyed, followed the edge of the forest to the walls of the chamber and tried to see a way around, but looking down at the base of the trees, he could see the soot marks now where they’d been scorched, perhaps by previous attempts to approach the Sleeper. There was no way in, not without becoming toast.

‘You have to know the way out,’ Clara said, grabbing the Hatter’s sleeve. ‘Please. If you’re scared of whatever that is in there, we can help. He’s the Doctor. That’s what he does. He fights the monsters.’

‘Does he now?’ asked the Hatter with a slight sneer. He snatched his arm away, dusted off his sleeve where she’d touched him and adjusted his frilly lace cuffs. ‘And why should I trust you? You don’t even have a face.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘In the other reality, going too close to the Sleeper meant getting attacked,’ said the Doctor, coming over to them. ‘Here, we can’t even get close, but the similarities are too much of a coincidence. The same scenario in both places. It has to be the answer. Maybe there’s something in the coffin. Besides the body, I mean.’

‘But you can’t get near it,’ said Clara.

‘Exactly. Shame,’ said the Hatter. ‘Never mind. They’re just about to start a quadrille. Come join the dance.’

The Doctor ignored him and examined the forest again, especially the blackened lines on the floor where the flames had shot up. He tried scanning them, then sighed as the sonic threw up a load of garbled nonsense.

‘You said there were dozens of versions of this castle,’ Clara said. ‘What if we tried another one? Maybe there’s one where we can actually get at this ‘Sleeper’ and see what’s going on.’

‘We could be here for millennia,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’ve no idea how expansive this simulation is.’

‘It can’t have that much memory, if it’s reusing all the same patterns.’

The Doctor straightened, getting up off the floor, and frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’

She gestured towards the Hatter, who had given up on them and was twirling about in his own little world over by the doorway.

‘I know you can’t see his face,’ she went on, ‘but his hair, his eyes, his bone structure… it’s the same as the Chief Undertaker. And out there…’ She took the Doctor’s arm and led him back to the ballroom, where the dancers had slowed and were now milling around the mushroom that served as a bandstand, waiting for the musicians to start up again.

‘There,’ Clara said, pointing at a woman in a red dress on the highest part of the mushroom stage. ‘Her. I’m sure that’s the same woman who showed me the mirror. And him.’

Sitting on the edge of the mushroom by the woman in red’s feet was a short, stocky figure wearing a rabbit mask and fake ears. An over-large gold watch hung from a chain on his maroon, checked waistcoat.

‘He’s the one who answered the door. It’s the same people, I’m sure of it,’ Clara said. ‘So if it’s having to reuse patterns, surely it’s only got a finite amount of memory available.’

‘The fact it’s finally let me talk to you might mean it’s starting to break down, I suppose,’ the Doctor mused. ‘What about the others? The dancers? Any more of them familiar?’

‘No, but then I only saw the three of them back at the other castle.’

‘And they’re the only ones who’ve actively tried to interact with us. They could be programmes, the rest just part of the décor. Doesn’t help us though if they’re not going to be co-operative.’

‘Have to say,’ said Clara, ‘I prefer this lot to the undertakers. At least no one here’s tried to kill us.’

‘Yet,’ said the Doctor.

3.

The Doctor examined every inch of the ballroom, every badly-maintained mirror and peeling bit of gold leaf, every mushroom-shaped chair and couch. He even ducked beneath the mushrooms that formed the stage for the musicians as the Hatter and the woman in red – was she the Red Queen or the Queen of Hearts? – launched into a rendition of ‘White Rabbit’, with the Hatter on guitar. He wasn’t bad, for a simulation. Really good tremolo at the beginning.

Nothing, though. No control panels, no out-of-place objects to help anyone find the way out, no obvious ways to access any in-programme menus. When he emerged and picked his way through the dancers to where Clara had slumped down on a mushroom seat, he ran his hand through his hair and sighed, feeling suddenly very weary.

‘No luck?’ Clara asked.

‘Not a pixel out of place,’ he replied. ‘You’re right, though, this whole simulation is tired. It’s running out of steam. I can feel it. But whatever’s wrong with it, it’s not affecting the physical rendering. Maybe we should move on, try another scenario.’

‘How?’ Clara asked. She turned and looked back towards the mirror where she’d emerged a few hours earlier. It reflected the crowd of masked revellers and the musicians on stage just like an ordinary mirror. When Clara approached it, though, her own reflection was blurred, a large patch of missing silver covering her face. She tried pressing the mouldings surrounding it, knocked on the wall panels that separated it from the next mirror along, then put her palms flat against the glass and pushed, all to no avail. The Doctor joined her and tried his sonic, on the frame and the glass, but nothing happened.

‘How did you open it the first time?’ Clara asked.

‘I didn’t. It opened itself. One minute I was here, the next I could see you in the other room.’

‘But I walked through it,’ Clara said, and pushed the glass again.

‘Nothing here is real, Clara,’ the Doctor reminded her. ‘It doesn’t have to follow the logic of the real world.’

‘But there is some kind of logic to it,’ she protested. ‘Two groups of people, both protecting whatever’s in that coffin. You said I got caught up in the programme. How? Where were we? What were we doing before all this started? If we can remember that, maybe that’ll tell us who’s behind this and what they really want.’

‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor admitted.

‘What?’

‘I can’t remember.’

Clara stared at him. ‘What do you mean you can’t remember? You said you came in here to find me. You said something about an asteroid base.’

‘I know,’ the Doctor replied darkly. ‘Since we’ve been here though, it’s been slipping away. When I first saw you, I remembered it all. I remembered looking for you. I’m sure I knew then where I’d been, what’d been happening, but now… it’s like trying to make out the reflections in that mirror.’ He gestured towards one of the blurry figures visible in the glass just over Clara’s equally distorted shoulder. ‘You know there’s something there and can just about make out what it is, but it won’t come into focus. It’s been getting worse since I found you.’

‘If you stay here, are you going to forget more?’ Clara asked.

‘I don’t know. That could be the point of it, to sap away memory and personality until you’re just another one of them.’ He turned and glowered at the dancers, now reeling around the mushroom stage again as the Hatter and Red Queen performed an arrangement of Carroll’s ‘The Lobster Quadrille’.

‘Isn’t that your guitar?’ Clara said.

‘I don’t have a guitar.’

‘No, but…’ She glanced away and folded her arms.

‘What?’ the Doctor prompted.

‘It just still feels real,’ she said. ‘You. I mean, the other you. I remember things about him. It’s hard to keep reminding myself that none of it happened.’

‘That’s how it works,’ said the Doctor. ‘Replace your own reality with theirs until you don’t know the truth any more. You have to focus on what’s real. Concentrate on what you know is true.’

‘Like what?’

The Doctor took her hands in his and looked right into her eyes. ‘Like me, Clara. If nothing else, remember me.’

She swallowed and nodded, but he could still see the fear in her expression. And when he glanced away to check the mirror again and saw the blurred, faceless version of her standing next to his own reflection, he realised that he couldn’t picture what she should look like in his mind, not without turning to look at her and refreshing his memory. He had to get out of here while he was still himself.

Something nudged him in the back and he turned to find the little man in the white rabbit outfit bumbling past him, watch in hand as if to check the time. He glanced up, though all the Doctor could make out were a couple of small eyes peering out from behind the rabbit mask, then hurried off around the ballroom. He came to a halt beside one of the other wall mirrors and stood, looking back at the Doctor and Clara as if he expected them to follow. Then the White Rabbit laid his hand on the glass of the mirror and pushed it gently. There as a click, and the mirror swung inwards on a central pivot.

‘Could be a trap,’ Clara suggested.

‘Probably is,’ said the Doctor. ‘Still, it’s got to be better than playing the wallflower in here. Come on.’

He took Clara’s hand and headed to the Rabbit’s mirror. The White Rabbit stepped back then disappeared into the crowd of dancers, but the mirror remained open, a dark, stone passageway just visible behind. The Doctor slipped through first, waited a second and then when nothing attacked him, he held out his hand and helped Clara through. As soon as she stepped down onto the flagstones, the mirror swung back into its frame and at once the music from the ballroom ceased. The only sound then was the rustle of Clara’s dress against the stone walls and the cold, steady drip of water somewhere in the darkness ahead. Two torches burned in sconces on the wall, so the Doctor took one and held it out in front of him. The passage was narrow, so much so that they had to walk in single file, and littered with bones. A few looked all-too human and the Doctor had to remind himself that this wasn’t real. Most likely, no one had died here. It was all theatre, part of the atmosphere. As were the rats that squeaked at them from the shadows and whose eyes he caught gleaming in the torchlight now and then.

‘Really wish we were still on Jane Austen,’ Clara remarked. ‘If this is all drawn out of my mind, at least then we could’ve been trapped in a garden party or something. Suppose we should be grateful I didn’t set them Lovecraft to read.’

At the end of the passage, the torchlight picked out a stone archway with a set of studded wooden doors, swathed in cobwebs that hung like funeral garlands.

‘What do you think?’ Clara asked. ‘Should we?’

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but he thought the wall behind them now looked like stone, not the back of the mirror.

‘There doesn’t seem to be much choice. Let see where we’re being led.’

He went forward and tried the doors. It took some effort but he finally managed to tug on one of the rusted iron rings set into the wood and pulled the doors open. The hinges screamed and the heavy wood scraped across the stone floor and all the debris littered at their feet. On the other side, a set of stone steps spiralled up out of view. The torch cast dancing shadows over the walls as the Doctor climbed and again, he spotted a few rats dashing off upstairs as he approached, but there were no other signs of life, no distant music drifting towards them or voices on the air. The Doctor began to wish Clara hadn’t mentioned Lovecraft as now all he could think about was that story where the protagonist climbs to the top of the tower he’s lived in all his life, only to come out into the open and realise he’d dragged himself out of his tomb. They certainly seemed to climb for hours, though there were no windows or even variations in the stonework to give a hint as to where they were or how far they’d come.

‘What if this just goes on like this forever?’ Clara asked.

The Doctor threw her a sour look. She’d just voiced the thought that had crossed his mind and he didn’t like that it had occurred to both of them. Hopefully whatever was creating this landscape wasn’t still plucking things from Clara’s mind. If so, she’d just given it ideas.

Then he noticed the torch. They’d paused for a second as Clara spoke, and now the Doctor saw how the flame continued to sway backwards, even though they were standing still. There was an air current. He quickened his pace and took the stairs two at a time, vaguely aware of Clara’s protests behind him as she struggled to keep up in her cumbersome dress.

After a few more twists in the stairwell, though, the Doctor found a door. He’d never been so glad to see a door before. It was old and heavy like the last one, but not as festooned in spider webs, and the floor in front of it was swept clear of detritus in an arc, as if this door was opened frequently. When he tried the ring, he found it swung open far more easily than the other one, and its hinges were silent.

He slipped through into what looked like the cloister of an abbey, dagger-arch windows stretching off in a row down one side, with moonlight tumbling through onto the flagstone floor. Through the windows, he saw a square of lawn, a chalky full moon overhead, illuminating the three undertakers as they stood, straight as soldiers, watching as a couple of figures in ragged clothes dug a grave in the very centre of the quadrangle. Luckily the undertakers’ backs were to the windows, but the Doctor gestured to Clara to stay quiet just the same, and trod lightly as he picked his way along.

He had just reached the middle of the cloister, when the female undertaker turned and looked over her shoulder. He felt her gaze on him and froze, squeezing Clara’s hand to tell her to do the same. The Doctor waited for alarms to ring, for people to come charging towards them, but the undertaker simply turned back around and went back to watching the gravediggers. The Doctor let out the breath he’d been holding and carried on, though the strangeness of the incident lingered with him. If those were programmes, designed to protect whatever the Sleeper was, why ignore him? Unless they would only respond to a direct assault on the thing they were guarding. They were back in the castle simulation though. That was interesting. He’d expected something new. Why had they come back here?

At the end of the cloister, they followed the passage around a corner and down a flight of steps that passed beneath a stone archway. The Doctor tried to map the geography of the place in his head, but found it hard to remember exactly where he’d just been. Had the passageway behind the mirror turned or not? Had they found a flight of steps halfway, or only at the end of it? And had he ever been in this part of the simulation before? This gothic castle, with flashes of lightning throwing brief flares of bright white light through its rain-streaked windows now and then. It felt familiar. As they came out into a large hall and he saw the red staircase rising upwards towards the balcony where, he felt sure, there had been rooms laid out for guests, he was sure he’d been here before.

‘This is how it was at the start,’ Clara said, as if reading his mind again. ‘The Sleeper, it’s through here.’

She hurried off through the doorway before he could stop her and he dared not call out, at the risk of bringing the undertakers and whatever else might be lurking in here bearing down on them. Instead, he followed her and found her in the room where, as before, the black coffin lay on its bier, surrounded by red and white roses.

‘They closed the lid,’ Clara said, circling the bier, though she kept her distance from the coffin itself. The coffin was, the Doctor remarked, open and a figure wrapped in black muslin was just visible inside.

‘Perhaps the simulation resets itself,’ he said. ‘Like the confession dial.’

‘The what?’

‘Nothing.’ Why had he said that? The Doctor couldn’t remember now what he’d been thinking. His mind was foggier than ever, and he was so tired. He didn’t want to tell Clara and worry her, but exhaustion had crept up on him as they’d made their way along the passage from the mirror and every step he took, the weight of it bore down more on his shoulders. He could easily have gone to the coffin, tipped out its current occupant, and settled down to sleep on the soft silk lining. He shook his head though and tried to clear his mind. No time to sleep. It was just the mental effort of interfacing with this simulation, and the programme’s attempt to assimilate him. The sooner they solved this riddle, the better.

‘It’s like nothing happened,’ said Clara. She stooped down to read the hand-written piece of black cardboard at the foot of the bier.

‘Do not awake him; for he is DEATH,’ the Doctor read aloud, ‘and his touch is DEATH and his sleep is…’

‘Doctor!’

He saw the fear in Clara’s expression and turned, just as the taloned hand swiped at the air in front of his face. If he hadn’t moved at that precise moment, he’d be curled up on the floor with poison coursing through his veins. The figure, stalking towards him on unsteady legs, was wrapped in black muslin, through which he could just make out its angular features and slender frame, though not its eyes. He was sure, however, that it was fixated on him.

It reached out, long nails pointed directly at his throat, and he backed away slowly, not wanting to make any sudden moves in case the thing actually could move faster than the mummy-like lurch. He almost asked it if it was his mummy, but then remembered he’d done that joke a few times already and now was probably not the time.

Then the bier hit him in the back of the legs and he realised the coffin was blocking his retreat. Several wreaths of flowers toppled and clattered onto the floor. The Doctor grabbed his screwdriver from his pocket. If this was a simulation, maybe he could disrupt it. Then again, was his sonic simply part of the programme? He tried anyway. The sonic whirred. The creature didn’t even flinch. But if it was there, then what was in the coffin?

The thought had just grazed the front of the Doctor’s mind when, in his peripheral vision, he saw the fabric inside the coffin flung to one side. Something leapt out onto the floor and stood level with him, the bier between them, and the sonic’s whir seemed to grow louder. In the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw another hand holding another screwdriver, albeit a larger, more angular one, but it was aimed at the creature, like his. Someone was helping him.

The muslin-wrapped thing jerked as if it had hit an invisible barrier. It shuddered and clawed at the air, then with a low growl, it disappeared, leaving behind only curls of black fabric, which crumpled to a heap on the floor.

The Doctor exhaled and wondered how he’d just survived. For a while he stared at the screwdriver in his hand, then he blinked and thumped his temples to clear his head. The other figure. Someone had helped him. He…

He turned and looked across the bier at the man who stood there, regarding the remains of the creature with a deep frown. He was tall and slim, with a shock of grey hair and the most aggressive set of eyebrows the Doctor had ever seen. The other man tucked his screwdriver into the pocket of the argyle jacket he wore then went over and crouched down beside the heap of fabric. He was wearing a kilt, and there were bloodstains on its hem.

‘What’s going on?’ Clara asked. She’d pressed herself against the back wall of the room and was staring at them both, wide eyed.

The man in the kilt got up and gave the Doctor the most scathing look he could ever remember undergoing before turning his attention to Clara.

‘Seriously?’ he asked. ‘All the people you could imagine to come and help and you chose him?’

‘I’m not the imaginary one here, Mr… angry Scottish person,’ protested the Doctor.

‘That cuts me to the bone. That’s just so incisive. Really, is that the best you can do?’

The Doctor wasn’t sure if the last bit was aimed at him or Clara.

‘Who are you supposed to be then?’ he asked.

The other man said nothing for a moment, studying him. ‘I’m the one who’s going to get us out of here. Or Clara at any rate, seeing as you’re not real.’

‘I am real,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘I came here to help…’

Then it dawned on him, and his hearts sank a little. He regarded the severe, frowning figure before him, then looked over at Clara and saw his fears confirmed in her expression.

‘Really?’ he asked her. ‘This is how you think I’d turn out?’

‘This is how you turn out,’ said the other Doctor. ‘A vast improvement, some would say.’

‘How can he be here?’ Clara asked. ‘You said he was part of the simulation.’

‘Of, you did, did you?’ said the Twelfth Doctor over his shoulder to his counterpart, then he went back to Clara. ‘And it never occurred to you that the simulation gave you exactly what you wanted? Your younger, flashier model back again, for all the good it seems to have done you.’

Clara hurried forward and grabbed the hem of the other Doctor’s kilt. The Doctor worried for a second as to what she might do, but she only pulled the cloth up an inch or so and peered for a moment at his knee.

‘No wound,’ she concluded. ‘You were mauled by that thing.’

‘I wouldn’t say mauled. It was a scratch.’

‘You died,’ Clara insisted. ‘I watched you die. You told me to get out, to take the TARDIS to Earth. So how are you here, and not a mark on you?’

‘I told you,’ said the Doctor. ‘The programme resets itself.’

‘Like the confession dial,’ both Doctors said at once. The Doctor glared at the new version of himself, who was now regarding him with curiosity rather than outright hostility.

‘Look,’ said the Twelfth Doctor, ‘does it really matter which of us is real? The point is, we both want Clara to get out of here, don’t we?’

The Doctor had to concede the point, and nodded.

‘Then it would seem a monumental waste of time to stand around here arguing, wouldn’t it?’

‘I didn’t start it,’ the Doctor said, and was annoyed at how petulant he sounded. The Twelfth Doctor though had gone over to the bier and clambered up so he could look inside the coffin. The Doctor joined him just as he heard fabric tearing, and saw his other self haul a strip of silk away from one of the side cushions. He pulled out handfuls of stuffing and tossed it over his shoulder, then patted the bare wooden side of the coffin beneath.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘I’ve already tried to find a control panel,’ the Doctor told him. ‘If there is one, it’s well hidden.’

‘After you left me,’ the other Doctor asked Clara, ‘you went through the mirror, yes?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘How did you know?’

He paused. ‘No idea. I just know. The other side of it, the Alice in Wonderland place…’

‘Which, if you were real, you wouldn’t know about,’ the Doctor reminded him in a low voice.

The Twelfth Doctor ignored him. ‘And you used the mirror again to get back here.’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but jumped down off the bier and went over to the freestanding mirror in the corner, prodding around its ornate frame.

‘They don’t seem to work unless the system wants us to move on,’ said the Doctor, though he was thinking aloud. He remembered the cloister and the gravediggers. There had been something eerily familiar about that scene, a grave in the middle of a castle and he couldn’t figure out what, but he pushed that to the side for the moment and thought about the undertakers. The female one had definitely looked right at him. He was sure of it. And yet she hadn’t given the alarm. The White Rabbit, or the little fellow dressed as the White Rabbit, had shown them the mirror door.

‘How did you know to use the mirror?’ asked the Twelfth Doctor, jerking him out of his thoughts, though when he turned he found the other man was ignoring him again and focused on Clara.

‘One of the undertakers,’ Clara said. ‘The woman. She sort of showed me. And I heard your voice.’ This to the Doctor. He smiled, then caught his other self’s eye and saw the disdainful glower, and any sense of being pleased with his rescue faded away.

‘Why would they help?’ the Twelfth Doctor said.

The Doctor was about to tell him what he’d just been thinking, about the White Rabbit and the grave in the cloister, but a dull thud and a creak sounded from the gallery outside. The three of them exchanged glances, then the Doctor turned to lead the way, only to find his Twelfth persona had beaten him to it and was already headed out the door.

‘Now I know he’s not real,’ he muttered. ‘I would never be that rude.’

‘Come on,’ Clara said with a sigh, and took his arm as they followed after the other Doctor.

When they came out onto the gallery, the Doctor looked down at the atrium and saw the short, male undertaker standing alone, his expression solemn, almost doleful. He was watching them as they came downstairs, but said nothing, then when they were on the same floor as him, he raised an arm and gestured towards a framed mirror standing in the corner. It was the White Rabbit, the Doctor thought. Despite the mask, it was obvious from the man’s build and bone structure.

‘Who are you?’ asked the Twelfth Doctor. ‘Why are you helping us?’

The undertaker said nothing but continued to point.

‘Aren’t you able to speak?’

The little man remained silent.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ boomed a voice above them on the stairs. The Doctor spun around and saw the Chief Undertaker just starting down from the gallery. He expected the little man to hurry away, but he just stood there, staring at his superior with an expression of defiance that came through despite his face being covered. The Doctor pulled himself up to his full height and straightened his bowtie, ready to confront the man on the stairs, but as he made to step forward, the little man turned sharply.

‘Go,’ he hissed.

The Doctor felt Clara pulling his arm and allowed himself to be led to the mirror. There was such fear and urgency in the little man’s tone. With one last look at the Chief Undertaker, the Doctor followed Clara and his other self.

4.

The Doctor stepped out of the mirror and found himself back in the ballroom, its chandelier blazing and the light glinting off the scuffed mirrors all around the room and the gilding on the mushroom furniture. The masquerade was still in session, the dancers wheeling around in their elaborate costumes. He looked for the Red Queen or the White Rabbit but could only see the Mad Hatter at the very centre of the dance, grinning and conducting the revels as if they were an orchestra. The band itself played an energetic rock song the Doctor vaguely recognised but couldn’t place, and the heavy bass vibrated through the marble floor and made the mirrors shudder. The Twelfth Doctor stood for a while beside him, taking everything in, and from the look on his face, wasn’t impressed. Then again, this version of himself didn’t seem the type to be easily impressed by anything. Clara exhaled deeply and the Doctor saw her shoulders sag.

‘This again,’ she said to no one in particular.

‘Why is the other one more aggressive?’ mused the Twelfth Doctor, heading towards the dancers. His attention seemed to be focused on the Mad Hatter. ‘If they’re the same programme fulfilling the same function then why would they behave differently?’

‘Different approaches,’ said the Doctor. ‘One’s trying to scare us away, this one seems more out to distract us.’

‘But from the same thing. The Sleeper.’

‘Which you can’t get near,’ said Clara. ‘We’ve already tried.’

‘You tried with Mr Probationary Geography Teacher here.’

The Doctor watched his kilted counterpart heading off towards the door to the Sleeper’s room, and for an instant toyed with the idea of not mentioning the wall of fire protecting the coffin in there, but his conscience got the better of him and he hurried to catch up. Besides, Clara would probably tell him. He found the other Doctor and Clara in the room with the forest growing up in it, both of them standing in the safe area. The Twelfth Doctor paced along the edge of the forest, then took a silver cigarette case from the inside pocket of his jacket. When he opened it, however, there were only jelly babies inside. Very funny, the Doctor thought.

‘Any great insights?’ the Doctor asked, not bothering to hide the sarcasm, even though it did occur to him that he was mocking an imaginary version of himself that didn’t exist outside this programme and therefore anything witty he said was sort of wasted.

The Doctor ate one jelly baby then tossed another towards the mouth of the forest. The flames roared up again, forming a solid barrier between the trees.

‘Like Clara said, we tried this.’

The other Doctor threw another jelly baby at the trees, aiming higher up this time. With a whoosh, the fire flared up once more. The Doctor sighed and left him to it, heading over to Clara’s side.

‘There’s something I’m missing. What is it?’ he asked, ruffling his hair. If only it wasn’t so hard to think. The continued blasts of fire from the barrier as the other Doctor kept hurling jelly babies at the forest didn’t exactly help matters either.

‘Doctor,’ Clara began in a quiet voice. She glanced at the other one and so the Doctor reasoned she didn’t want him to hear. ‘What if there’s no way out of here? You said you’d been trying for ages and…’

‘That was before I found you,’ said the Doctor. He took hold of her arms and looked her straight in the eye. ‘There is a way out. There has to be. There’s always a way out. Even if you have to punch through a solid wall, there’s always a way out.’

‘But…’

‘Look, ignore Grumpy McEyebrows over there and concentrate on me. I swear to you, I will get you out.’

And not watch you die again, he thought, though he swallowed back the words before they slipped out.

He realised then that he hadn’t heard the harumph of the fire for a while and turned to see the other Doctor still hurling jelly babies at the trees, only he was throwing them high into the canopy, and each one followed its ballistic arc and bounced across the marble floor. There were a few unburnt ones now lying at the foot of the coffin’s bier. The Twelfth Doctor put the silver case back into his pocket and gave an extremely smug smile, then without another word, hurried over to the nearest tree and started to clamber up its trunk. The Doctor had to admit that he moved with far more grace and energy than his apparent age suggested. In a few seconds he was near the top of the tree and sidling out across a long branch that reached towards the back of the room.

‘I hope when you were making this up,’ the Doctor said quietly to Clara, ‘you imagined some underwear with that outfit.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘You’re not the one who might have to look up as they’re helping him down.’

‘You two want to shut up for a minute?’ the Twelfth Doctor called back. He had made it to the end of the branch, though it buckled a little under his weight, then he jumped for the next tree along. He caught a branch, but lost his footing and hung there, directly over the blackened line of tiles. The Doctor saw something glint and realised the silver case was slipping slowly from his other self’s pocket. The Twelfth Doctor swung his legs towards the second tree and managed to hook one knee over the branch just as the case fell. The flames roared as the case dropped to the floor but they only licked at the Doctor’s back. He held still, clinging to the branch like some kind of sloth, until the fire subsided again, then he scrambled around and hauled himself up. The Doctor watched as the other man crawled along the branch to the trunk of the second tree, then began to climb down, landing safely by the side of the bier. The Doctor folded his arms and glowered, but his other self just gave him a self-satisfied grin and turned to face the coffin. Then his smile died and for a long time he just stared down into the depths of the casket, so still he might have been one of its funerary monuments.

‘Well?’ Clara called to him. ‘What is it? Is there a way out?’

The Twelfth Doctor took a deep breath and straightened, as if roused from hypnosis.

‘No,’ he replied, his tone grim. ‘There’s nothing. It’s empty.’

‘That makes no sense,’ said Clara.

‘Sense or not,’ said the other Doctor, ‘it’s empty.’

He turned and strode towards them. The Doctor shouted, as did Clara, when he reached the line of burn marks on the floor, but he walked through, unfazed, and no flames rose up to assail him.

‘It’s designed to keep people out, not in,’ the Twelfth Doctor commented casually, then went off towards the ballroom, barely even looking at either the Doctor or Clara as he passed.

The Doctor looked back at the coffin, and considered following his other self’s example, climbing up and having a look himself, just to be sure, but before he could make the decision, he saw Clara wrap her arms around herself and head out too, and he was certain, as she’d turned, he’d seen her pressing her eyes tightly shut in an attempt to stave off tears. He gave the coffin one last look, then went after her. He’d just have to trust the other Doctor for now. After all, if Clara imagined him as a future version of himself, then hopefully, despite the gruff manner, he was still the Doctor underneath.

The Red Queen was on the mushroom stage again when the Doctor emerged into the ballroom, but the song she sang now was slow and melancholy, and the dancers clung to each other and glided over the checkerboard marble floor like wisps of fog across a moor. The Doctor looked around for his other self and spotted him over by one of the wall of mirrors, hands clasped behind his back while he admired himself in the glass, looking for all the world like a general on the eve of a battle he knows will be his last. Was it the Doctor’s imagination or had the other man’s hair grown longer? It was hard to remember. Clara sat on one of the mushroom couches, the heel of her hand against one of her eyes. She was definitely trying not to cry. The Doctor crossed over to her and crouched on his haunches at her side.

‘We can’t give up,’ he said. ‘The coffin might not be the answer but there has to be something.’

‘Like what?’ Clara asked. ‘All we’ve done is bounce back and forth between this place and the castle. We haven’t found anything near to a way out. If it’s my brain creating all of this then I should be able to get us out, but I just don’t know how.’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ the Twelfth Doctor said over his shoulder.

‘Not that I like agreeing with the spectre at the feast,’ said the Doctor, ‘but he’s got a point. This is a sophisticated simulation. There could be a lot more at play here than we first thought. And if it’s anybody’s fault it’s mine. If I could just remember…’

‘First correct assertion you’ve made all day,’ said the other Doctor.

‘You’re not exactly helping,’ the Doctor snapped, getting to his feet.

The Twelfth Doctor gave him a humourless smile, then went back to looking in the mirror. ‘I thought I wasn’t real? How can I be expected to help?’

‘Just shut up, both of you,’ said Clara.

The Doctor turned to answer her, but paused. The Mad Hatter had appeared, and now approached the couch where Clara was seated, one hand behind his back and the other held out to her.

‘There’s no need for sadness,’ he said. ‘We’re all mad here. Come. Join us. Have a dance.’

‘Clara,’ the Doctor warned.

Clara looked up at the Hatter, who smiled beneficently down at her, then gave an elaborate bow and offered his hand again.

‘We’ve tried everything else,’ she said. ‘What harm can it do?’

She took the Hatter’s hand and allowed him to lead her to the dancefloor.

‘Clara!’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said the Twelfth Doctor.

‘How can you…’

‘Because none of it matters.’ The other Doctor turned around, his expression stern. ‘Are you so much of an idiot you can’t see that?’

‘At least I’m…’ the Doctor began, but then he let his voice trail off. The music had stopped. The dancers all drifted to a halt, Clara and the Hatter included, and everyone looked towards the mirror wall where, a few moments earlier, the Doctors and Clara had entered. It had swung open again, and through it now stepped three figures in dark suits, dark masks and top hats with mourning veils. The undertakers had arrived.

5.

It was the first time the Doctor had seen the ballroom fall silent. The dancers withdrew, huddling together in little groups around the mushroom stage, leaving only the Hatter, the Red Queen and White Rabbit in the centre with Clara. The three undertakers, their doppelgängers, stalked out of the mirror-door and stood facing them. The Chief Undertaker and Hatter considered each other for a long while, then both turned to face the Doctor and his other self.

‘This is new,’ the Doctor muttered.

‘I imagine the programme is shutting down,’ said the Twelfth Doctor. ‘Because I know what’s going on now.’

Clara hurried over to him. ‘What do you mean you know what’s going on?’

‘It didn’t occur to you to share with anybody?’ asked the Doctor.

‘No it didn’t,’ the Twelfth Doctor replied calmly. He wandered over to the Hatter and undertaker and for a while the three men simply scrutinised each other in silence.

‘If you know how to get out then why haven’t you told me?’ Clara demanded.

‘Why should anyone tell you?’ asked the Chief Undertaker. ‘You haven’t even got a face.’

‘Why does everyone keep saying that?’

‘Because to them it’s true,’ said the Twelfth Doctor. His tone was not unkind. In fact there was a slight trace of an apology there, but the Doctor still wanted to hit him. Clara simply stared, trying to think of a response.

‘What…’

‘How many mirrors are there in this room alone?’ asked the Twelfth Doctor. ‘How many have you seen yourself reflected in?’

Clara shook her head, a single tear catching the light from the chandeliers as she turned around to look at the dusty mirrors that surrounded them.

‘But… it’s just that they’re dirty. They’re scratched. They’re…’

‘What exactly are you trying to do?’ asked the Doctor. He could feel his hearts picking up speed as his anger rose, but his other self regarded him with the same distant, slightly sad expression.

‘You tell me then,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who’s real. You’re the one in control. Tell me what you see when you look at her.’

‘Well, I…’ The Doctor was ready to hurl a barrage of insults but he stopped, the words sticking in his throat. It had to be some sort of trick, but now that he looked at her, he couldn’t focus on Clara’s face. He blinked and tried again, trying to will his mind to come out of the fog and concentrate.

‘Doctor?’ he heard Clara say, the two syllables cracking as more tears came.

‘I…’

‘Go on then,’ said the Twelfth Doctor, hurling the same rage at him as he’d intended to throw himself. ‘Describe her to me. Clara Oswald. The impossible girl. It’s not difficult. Just tell me what she looks like.’

The Doctor turned to Clara again, determined this time that he would see through whatever it was making his vision blur, only Clara wasn’t there. He spun around on the spot, looking at each of the dancers in turn. There seemed to be fewer of them than before, and none of them were Clara. Shadows gathered in the corner of the ballroom now, as if the room were shrinking. And there was no sign of Clara.

‘You can’t, can you?’ asked the Twelfth Doctor. ‘I’d be surprised if you can even see her at all now.’

‘What have you done?’ the Doctor demanded.

‘Realised what’s going on,’ said the other Doctor, lowering his voice. ‘They can’t see her. You can’t see her. You can’t even remember what she looked like. Because neither can I.’

There were no dancers at all now, no musicians. The mushroom stage had been consumed by the encroaching darkness, so that only the two Doctors, the three undertakers and their counterparts from the ballroom, the Hatter, the Red Queen and the White Rabbit, remained in the ever-dwindling pool of light.

‘I can’t remember,’ said the Twelfth Doctor. ‘And if I can’t remember, the simulation can’t take the image from my mind and bring it to life. It can only trick me into thinking I’m seeing the real Clara. It’s been there from the very beginning. Staring me in the face, so to speak. The Sleeper must not be awoken. He brings death. Who else could that be?’

‘But…’ the Doctor began, but he couldn’t finish the thought.

‘All of this,’ continued his other self, ‘you thought it must be for Clara’s sake because if it was your dream, well, you’d be clever enough to see it and to get out of it, wouldn’t you? But that always supposed that you wanted to get out of it. There is no control panel. No magic door that leads to the outside. There is no monster threatening you. The only thing keeping you here… is you.’

He crossed to the Chief Undertaker and with a swift movement, removed the man’s mask and stepped back. The Undertaker straightened, then looked directly at the Doctor. The Doctor stared at his own face, or rather at the face of the version of himself he’d tried to convince himself didn’t exist. The Twelfth Doctor. That Doctor then fixed his attention on the Hatter, but before he could make the same move, the Hatter gave a sweeping bow and removed his hat and mask himself. When he straightened, smiling, he too had the face of the Doctor.

‘Of course,’ said the Twelfth Doctor, ‘the question occurs as to why you are here in this form. But then again this is your fault, isn’t it? You couldn’t let go. You had to go on. Thirteen lives, that’s all we’re meant to have. None of us were meant to live this long. None of us were meant to keep going with no idea when the end might be. When there might be a chance to rest. Is it so awful if I just… just this once, want to rest? A place to sleep, and to dream. To have things back that I’ve lost. Is that so much to ask? But no, I can’t let it go, can I? I’m the Doctor. I don’t have the luxury of rest. I am the one who has to carry on. I am the one who has to shoulder the burden of everyone else’s death. If I give up, how many people do I let down? But what it would be like to just stop. To just sleep. To be done with it all. No more monsters. No more heroics. No more deaths. Would it be my fault? Whatever came after I was gone?’

‘You already know the answer to that,’ said the Red Queen.

The Twelfth Doctor smiled and nodded. ‘And so here we are. Fighting against myself. Again. But there is one thing I don’t understand in all of this. If I am the Sleeper, if this is some prison, or some afterlife or whatever it is and I am not meant to know the truth and wake up, if this whole elaborate performance was intended to keep me here and keep me asleep then why are you two helping me?’

When the Doctor reeled around, he saw the Red Queen and the White Rabbit step towards the two undertakers who echoed them. They came together and merged, leaving the Red Queen and the shorter male undertaker standing side by side.

‘Because there are still people out there who need you, Doctor,’ said the undertaker to the Twelfth Doctor.

‘So this self-pity is all very well,’ continued the Red Queen, ‘but it’s been long enough now. Get up off your arse and wake up.’

‘How?’ the Doctor asked.

‘You know how,’ said the Twelfth Doctor. ‘You’ve always known how.’

He stepped aside, into the darkness, leaving the Doctor facing his own reflection in the mirror. Only his image had changed. He saw himself now not as his younger self in purple frock coat and bow tie, but white-haired, stern-faced, dressed in a black velvet coat.

‘Wake up, Doctor,’ said the Red Queen.

‘Wake up,’ echoed the undertaker.

The Doctor saw one of the small, golden mushroom seats in front of him, the only thing now that remained of the ballroom. He picked it up, considered his reflection one last time, then hurled the seat towards the mirror.

He woke with a gasp and felt suddenly cold all over, his chest gripped by the chill so that it was hard to breathe. His eyes were closed and he couldn’t bring himself to open them yet, but he felt someone’s arm around his shoulders, someone’s hand on his bare skin, and heard a voice by his ear say, ‘I’ve got you, you’re all right.’

The Doctor sensed that he was being carried and then laid out and covered in something that brought a little warmth to his body but he still couldn’t stop shivering. A sharp pain flared in his upper arm and then the cold ceased. He relaxed, feeling as if his blood had started flowing for the first time, warming his muscles and organs. Finally he managed open his eyes. The world was a blur at first, but then the lights and shadows above him resolved into a ceiling of metal girders and a grid of cables and tubes, with small red spotlights set amongst them. He was lying on some kind of medical table with a heavy blanket over him, and there were people by his side. One held his hand. A girl. Young, smiling, though her eyes were full of concern. Her name came back to him slowly and he tried to say it aloud.

‘Bill…’

‘You’re all right,’ Bill Potts said. She brushed his hair back from his forehead. It was wet. When she pulled her hand back, he saw some sort of viscous fluid on her fingers where she’d touched him. The other figure was a small, bald man in a red duffle coat, who stood with his arms folded, frowning at him.

‘You were a rabbit,’ the Doctor said to Nardole, whose frown only deepened.

‘Eh?’

A low mechanical whirr sounded nearby and a figure came into view, attached to the grid on the ceiling by more wires and tubes. It was some sort of robot, the Doctor decided, with glowing red eyes and clunky approximations of human hands to let it manipulate controls, but it had no legs, no lower body at all in fact. Instead it seemed to be moved around by mechanisms on the grid.

‘The corporation wishes to extend its humblest apologies,’ said the robot. ‘We have never encountered this situation before. We would like to assure you that this incident will be fully investigated and safety measures put into place.’

‘What incident?’ asked the Doctor. He tried to remember. There was something about an asteroid. A base there. He’d been with Bill and Nardole and…

‘You wandered off,’ said Bill. ‘Played around with one of the computers and got yourself plugged into their system.’

Then he remembered.

‘It’s a hospital,’ he said.

‘Corporation Medical Unit 370-876-H-2,’ the robot informed him.

‘Virtual reality to occupy patients on long-term treatment,’ said the Doctor.

‘Or as an aide to recovery,’ said the robot. ‘You were accidentally allocated to one of our intensive care pods.’

‘We thought we’d never get you out,’ said Nardole.

‘How long was I asleep?’

‘About ten minutes.’

The Doctor started to laugh, but after a while it faded as a few wisps of memory came back.

‘You sure you’re all right?’ Bill asked.

The Doctor forced a smile. ‘I will be. No other choice, after all, is there? We have to keep going. No matter how tempting it might be.’

Bill regarded him with a worried expression, but patted his shoulder. ‘I’ll go see if they found your clothes. If not, we’ll get you something from the TARDIS. Any preferences?’

‘Anything but a kilt,’ the Doctor called after her as she disappeared down the corridor.


End file.
